


Amid The Flames

by dansrusse



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-11
Updated: 2011-06-11
Packaged: 2017-10-20 08:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dansrusse/pseuds/dansrusse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Vriska is severely injured do to the chain of revenge, she is looked after by Kanaya and Equius. The healing process is long and hard, and you can't do it alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amid The Flames

There is a hand on her forehead, stroking back her hair. She tries to turn her head towards it, but her neck is stiff, and her head throbs. She moans a little, and the hand lingers on her cheek.

“Shh,” a voice says to her. “Shh, it will be fine. You are alright. Go back to sleep.”

The voice is calm, and so she is calm. She closes her eye, and the world fades again.

There are people talking, a boy and a girl. They seem to be arguing over something.

“Something is wrong,” the girl is saying. “Her shoulder should not be that swollen.”

“There is nothing I can do,” the boy says. “She will either reject the metal, or accept it. I can do nothing.”

She tries to speak, to ask what is going on, but her tongue is thick, furry, and words do not come out.

She tries to open her eyes but she can’t, she tries to lift her hands and only one moves. Using her working arm, Vriska reaches up to her face. Her eyes are wrapped in a bandage. Well. That would explain why she can’t open them.

“Be still,” the girl tells her, and hands are on her back, helping her into a sitting position. Her head spins, and she vomits.

“See,” the girl says. “Something is not right.” The girl is sitting behind Vriska now, holding her up. The girl is rubbing circles on her back.

The boy sighs. “I will get a fresh towel.”

“Please.” She folds over the now soiled towel in front of Vriska, lifts it off of her, presumably to hand to the boy.

“Drink some water,” she says. Vriska laps at it, but then pushes it away. Her stomach is rolling. She does not want to add anything to it. She sags against the girl behind her.

“Drink a little more,” the girl prompts. “You have been unconscious for several days. Now that you are awake, you need to drink something, or risk becoming dehydrated.” Vriska moans weakly, but the glass is in front of her again so she takes a hesitant sip.

“Good,” the girl says, when she has drunk half of the glass. “Do you think you can sit up on your own?”

Vriska swallows, her throat not so parched. “No.”

“That’s alright. We’ll just wait til - Oh, good, you’re back. Where are the towels?”

“I am currently out of towels,” the boy says. “I have sent Aurthour to get fresh ones.” Aurthour. So the boy is Equius, then. Who is the girl? Vriska tries to recognize her voice, the feel of her hands, but her head is throbbing. She can’t think.

“Why don’t you just wash the ones you have?” The girl asks.

“Because they are stained.”

“Really, Equius. And then when you get new ones, they’ll be stained, too. Why don’t you simply buy blue towels? Then you wouldn’t have to throw them away with every use.”

“Because blue towels are not proper,” Equius says.

“You are ridiculous,” the girl says. “Come over here and hold her up. I want to look at her eye.”

Soon the bandages around her face are being unwrapped. Her right eye opens of its own accord and a face swims in place before her. Kanaya. Of course. Her left eye, though, will not budge. Kanaya pokes around it, with her fingers. She’s trying to be gentle, but it still hurts. Vriska curls her fingers into her palm, trying not to cry out. She leans against Equius, and he wraps his arms around her.

“This is going to hurt,” Kanaya warns, before prying her left eye open.

“Oh, Vriska,” she sighs, and Vriska tenses. “Equius, we need more clean towels.”

“I already told-”

“Then wash them. I refuse to ruin another set of towels.”

Equius wipes his forehead. “It will take half an hour for them to be cleaned and dried.”

“Fine. We can wait. Vriska, I am going to re-bandage your left eye until the towels are clean, and then I’m going to clean it. For now, I want you to eat something.”

Vriska shakes her head.

“Just something light,” Kanaya cajoles. “You have not eaten in days, and you require nourishment.”

Vriska relents, leaning back against Equius.

She manages to finish half a bowel of some sort of soup. It’s light, yes, but there are green things floating in it. Equius, sitting behind her to hold her up, laughs at the faces she makes every time Kanaya feeds her a bite that has one of the green things in it. It’s always nice to hear Equius laugh, he takes himself so seriously. All in all, lunch (if that’s what this is, Vriska has no clue what time it is) is alright.

But then Kanaya cleans the socket where Vriska’s left eye used to be.

“I am sorry,” Kanaya mutters, over and over as Vriska grits her teeth and tries not to cry. The whole ordeal is painful - it seems that the socket, while well cared for, has gotten infected, and it must be carefully looked after. Even the strong Equius cannot stand to look at it. Instead, he lets Vriska clutch his hand as tightly as she can, distracting her with stories from when they were very young.

“Even as a child, you were so improper,” Equius tells her. “You would show up here, filthy, covered in mud, and Aurthour hated it. He used to make us bathe together, you and me, when we were very young. Afterwards, you would run around naked. It was very lewd, and Aurthour chased you all over with a towel. Later, when you were a little bit older, Gamzee started visiting. Aurthour made him take baths with us, too, but he made us wear proper swim wear. It never made much of a difference. You always stripped in front of us anyways. Aurthour nearly had a conniption.”

Kanaya smiles, and carefully begins to re-wrap the eye, now clean.

“It seems like you were something of a wild child, Vriska.”

Vriska squeezes Equius’s hand. This is the most she’s heard him talk in years.

“She was.” Equius says, and continues, telling Kanaya about something ridiculous she did when she was very young.

She falls asleep to the sounds of their voices washing over her.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed the first installment! I've been working on this for ages, and only just got it up to what I'd like. I suppose I could stop here, but I really don't feel that it's finished. So we'll see!
> 
> Edit: This is done. Sorry for those of you who wanted more, I left the fandom. But also, I feel like there is nothing else to say, here.


End file.
